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There's not really much of a difference when a character is done so poorly. A poorly made character is a crappy character, in action and on paper. I'm talking about his characterization and everything that goes into putting him on the screen. I use examples of his moments onscreen to illuminate the mistakes and sloppy writing that brought it into being.

Exposition and narration are ways writers tell us things. It's extremely relevant that we are SHOWN Mako is a good brother, otherwise we won't believe it, and thus the character falls flat. It's lazy writing if we are just told 'Mako is a good brother', instead of showing it. I even made a point of saying that showing him cooking doesn't mean they're showing him as a good brother. Cooking for someone =/= caring deeply for them, and getting a second job doesn't mean

No, no, god no. I can't do this. There is so much wrong with your arguments and you clearly didn't understand my original post (since I used examples of serious contradictions, and you're making it sound like there aren't any). And you clearly don't understand story telling or characters. Please, I feel like you're really passionate about this. Go read up some stuff about what goes into making these stories. And for the love of god, Judge Dredd definitely changed and definitely had an arch. And loving a character does not mean that that character was a good character. There is a huge difference between loving something, and something being well-crafted or good. No one can rightfully fault someone for loving a character. It's completely a personal choice. But you said that he's written to be heroic and selfless, and that is just plain wrong. Maybe I'll give you 'badly written to be heroic and selfless'. But he is absolutely not those things. Aang was heroic, Zuko was heroic. Wtf did Mako do that was heroic? Shooting lightning at Amon? Yep, attacking the bad guy is definitely the definition of a hero.

Too harsh and venty, I agree. But this is a case of the 'twilights'. As in, Twilight isn't a good book, by every and any possible definition and/or combination of 'good' and 'book'. It's just the truth. It's at the point where it's not an opinion because the problems are so blatant and crippling. But some people disagree and say they're great books. These people either don't know/care much about books and writing, aren't paying much attention to what they're reading, or they are too infatuated with the idea of the romance to see the flaws.

You can like him all you want. You can hold the completely valid opinion that he's your favorite character, or whatever. But to say he's a good character is just wrong. It's like saying honey boo-boo is a great tv show. No. No it's not.

To your first point, no. Just no. We're were told most of that stuff, not shown. Good writing doesn't tell us important things like that, it shows us. And those things don't make a good brother on their own. I only remember one moment where money management was brought up, and it was Bolin talking about food. I'm sorry, it's generally not irresponsible to spend money on food, and there weren't any hints that Mako was more responsible with money then Bolin. Beyond getting a second job, but getting a second job isn't indicative of financial responsibility. I didn't really see much of Mako freaking out, and instead I saw a lot of him being annoyed with Bolin for being in trouble. I'd agree to him being worried, or putting forth the effort to find him, but freaking out, Mako was not.

A lot of people, I'm sure.

Yes, and I listed the traits those people had. And how terrible it is depends a lot on context. What was the character thinking, what was the situation, the personalities involved, etc. Why did Mako do what he did? Jealousy is what comes to mind. You could also say it was greed, love, lust, uncertainty, confusion, etc. He was taking a big risk, but for what reason? Did he really care that much about Korra, in such a short time? No, that's not realistic or believable considering the progression of their relationship, and it just makes him come off as flaky. We see a nice escalation of the relationship between him and Asami, at a believable and generally realistic pace. Things don't get serious too fast, no one is taking huge risks for the relationship for no reason (from the perspective of the audience), etc. Mako goes from being pissy and annoyed with Korra, to completely changing his mind when he finds out she's the avatar (as if that makes a difference?), to being pissy with her when he's the one being a jerk, to working together to get bolin back with no interesting interactions, to being jealous of her being with bolin, to his emotional reveal. Why did he do that? Saying 'because he loved her' is a weak cover for lazy writing.

He's not being shown to be the kind of character that does that type of stuff. He's being (poorly) shown to be a responsible character, as you say, more or less conservative, fatherly, protective, etc, but then makes these glaringly ridiculous mistakes and blames everyone else for them. A protective character doesn't make a mistake then blame the victims (there are exceptions to this of course, but mako is definitely not one) It would be more realistic if he was more withdrawn, if we were shown him having moments of connection with Korra, but fighting to keep himself from making what he would see as a 'big mistake'. A big risk. Where Mako wouldn't interfere because he cares about his brother, but instead Korra, the brash, naive horny toad goes and reveals to him she cares. AFTER dating bolin, rather then before. And Mako shouldn't be the one to make such a huge mistake. Kissing back is not a big mistake. Generally, it's good to take a character's faults and really bring them out. This type of situation would have been really neat for that. Say, Korra takes the opportunity to tell Mako how much she cares, kisses, whatever. Mako surrenders for a moment, then realizes what he's doing and flips out and runs away. Guilty over hurting his brother (which further emphasizes his good traits, ie protectiveness towards Bolin). It would force him to deal with his bad traits (being too reserved to prevent the situation or to have just told her how he felt sooner), while also highlighting his good traits (caring more about the well-being of his brother then himself, etc)

It would be more interesting if we saw this reserved, quiet guy suddenly snap (think Gohan from dbz haha), but instead we get a character that is reserved/boring half the time, and instead of 'snapping' in interesting or revealing ways, he is a jerk the rest of the time. It makes him boring and uninteresting half the time, and aggravating the other half. Does that make sense?

Believe me, I might be a batshit fangirl, but for Korra, I just wasn't all that interested in any of the ships. Except maybe Amon/Lt. I was pretty fond of Lin/Tenzin as well, but that was about it. Though I was also a little intrigued by Korra/Asami. Ha. This assessment doesn't come from any ship bias. I am a big-time shipper, in that I ship damn near everything. In atla, I shipped literally every possible combination you could imagine. I'm really interested in characters and interactions, and atla had a lot of really strong, interesting characters, which just made me so happy. There are several strong characters, Tenzin, Lin, Amon, but they weren't all strong consistently. Bolin falls to the side after about ep 7-8. Korra's character started to weaken considerably towards the end as well. Mako was weak throughout, Amon kinda had troubles towards the end (as in, it wasn't really shown why he did what he did, which is important since the audience needs to understand why the bad guy is doing what he's doing) LT stayed surprisingly strong for a support char, and even the airbender kids were good.

We only have a short time to get to know these characters. Good writers don't just throw stuff in for no reason. There's a point to everything. And in regards to shows and movies, great writers don't TELL us important aspects of a character. They show it, and that is key. For example, we aren't told that Iroh is wise. We're shown that he is wise, in how he acts, in how he speaks, in how he treats others. The moments we're told that Iroh is wise through other characters are done to establish the relationship that character has with Iroh. Not to establish that trait in Iroh.

Mako's character is all over the place, but that was either unintentional, or it was poor execution. I could write essays pointing out every moment, comparing contrasting, and breaking down why exactly the execution and writing of Mako sucks. The writing relies too heavily on putting in 'symptoms' of interesting characters. Say, using a scene with Mako cooking to show that he cares for his brother, instead of intertwining his care for Bolin into every moment Mako is onscreen, and having a moment of him cooking because that's just awesome and further fleshes out an aspect of his life and relationships.

Good god this tl;dr.My hate for Mako comes from a batshit passion for characterization, not because of any shippiness. I don't love or hate a character because of a ship. I like a ship because I love a character. What Mako did is forgivable, if the audience can sympathize with him. Audiences can forgive so much bs from characters we care about. I mean, come on. We forgave Zuko for betraying Iroh (well, some of us did haha), and that's because it hurt to watch him do that. We were so mad at him and wanted so badly for him to remedy the situation. We were so drawn in because we cared, because he was a great character. To put it simply, Mako is not a great character, otherwise he would have had an arch. He did not grow. He was not consistent. He did not change (other then falling in love with korra, which done poorly, is not change).

TL;DR Mako was inconsistent, and did not change or grow. Just those two things alone make him a shitty character. It's not an opinion. And since when is Mako an example of visual humor? Sokka and Bolin fit that, not Mako. Any humor with Mako would be generally dry and funny because of how serious he is. The sneeze was funny, for example, but not visually funny.

Just want to say that I didn't see much of that selfless brother-saving behavior we kept being told about. Did I miss some episodes or something?

The best example I can possibly use to show how much of an awful character Mako is, is this. Think of your best friend. I don't mean 'bbf lyk ttly', I mean seriously best friend. Someone you can rely on, someone who knows you better then you know yourself. Someone you've spent years with, someone you care deeply about. Someone who depends on you as much as you depend on them. Someone you went to hell and back with.

Now imagine that this friend tells you they like someone. We'll call this someone Alex for the wonderful gender-neutralness of the name. And Alex tells you that they like you. Would you turn around and tell Alex that you like them, knowing that Alex likes you and knowing that your friend likes them? Who the fuck does what Mako did.

One of several things. Either they are selfish, idiotic, poorly constructed character-wise, or they are an asshole. In this case, all the above apply to Mako. I mean the guy, who supposedly cares so much about his brother and took care of him so selflessly, yelled at Bolin for the situation and blamed him for what happened. He was mad at Bolin for being upset. The fuck is that. There are a million examples of him being a shitty character. Mako could be a very interesting character, one that I love just as much as I love every other character on the show. But his execution is absolutely godawful.

Mako is a shit character. He could be a good or great character like every other avatar character we have so far, but instead, he is a sloppy, 2-d crapfest of preteen fanfic writer word-vomit. Say otherwise and you either aren't watching the show closely, don't know much about writing and character creation, or are too infatuated with the guy to see his flaws.

Ok, as much as I love thoughts and ideas like this, this one has bugged me for a while. I couldn't figure out why until very recently.

It's like asking 'Does this music note sound the same to you as it does to me? Is your F like my C?' Yes, your brain could potentially be interpreting the stimuli differently, but ffs, color is essentially nothing more then slight variations in light waves. Thinking it might be completely different for someone else is... just kinda silly. It's like asking 'Does wool feel like wool to everyone? Or does someones 'wool' feel like my brick?'. There's no way for 'brick' to feel like 'wool' (except for medical problems or science), because the material is different. It's basically a really illogical, roundabout way of sharing the idea that everyone has different experiences and perspectives that shape even the tiniest details of their life. Ones you wouldn't, or couldn't, even imagine.

I don't even feel that passionate about this. I just get kinda miffed and I've never been able to peg down why. It's still possible, but color is essentially no different then every other stimuli your brain receives. So why only focus on color? Because its so common yet so hard to explain. It's a classic 'stoner' question.

I could be wrong, so someone please correct me if I am. However, I've read that the reason fluffy towels do a shitty job drying actually has little to do with the towel, and much more to do with fabric softeners! Fluffy towels have more strands and such, so they hold onto more of the 'stuff' from softeners/dryer sheets. That 'stuff' isn't very absorbent (to make it feel softer, it clings to the fabrics and makes a 'barrier' of sorts that gives the impression of softness). It coats fluffy towels more then non-fluffy towels, and thus makes them seem shittier then their non-fluffy cousins.

Don't use dryer sheets or fabric softener for your towels. Throw in some vinegar instead, and they won't suck as much!

I think the hivemind would call itself 'socially liberal, fiscally conservative', which often actually means some shade of libertarian. Libertarianism is like an umbrella. It includes a lot of different views, and doesn't automatically mean 'let big business do whatever it wants'. It's more about equality and freedom (a lot of libertarians feel that govt subsidies for companies is bs, and that any money involved in politics jacks things up. Hivemind tends to feel that way) Check out the 'Schools' section on the righthand side if you're bored or curious. It's complicated and, frankly, arbitrary stuff.

I donno, this is kinda getting too nitpicky I think. I just feel like it's not all that inaccurate to call reddit libertarian. We're certainly not authoritarians.

Sure, and some conservatives have a lot of those beliefs too. But in general, they are more liberal then conservative. And they're more libertarian then authoritarian. Simplifying that a lot, but honestly, none of that stuff is black and white. The free market is only one part of libertarian philosophy, and the hivemind being critical of the free market doesn't change the leaning.

For a shitty example, my personal beliefs line up more with democrats than republicans. However, I'm against gun control. That doesn't change the fact I fall into the vague, simplified category of being a democrat. Just because the hivemind favors taxing the rich and is very critical of the 'bullshit' the big companies get away with, doesn't mean you can't accurately simplify it (for the sake of communication) by calling it libertarian.

Reddit leans far more libertarian than authoritarian. Saying the hivemind is libertarian is way more accurate then if they said conservative, or communist, or neo-con, or feminist, etcetc. Culturally, at least in the us, the definition and perception of 'libertarian' seems to be changing, so I do feel like it's an unfair assessment. But it's not entirely inaccurate.

It's a ridiculous phrase, I definitely agree with that. But I have to say that when people generalize reddit, they're talking about 'the hivemind', and the hivemind is definitely libertarian, with the exception of how reddit feels about big companies.

Just like if someone says that the US is a religious country, they're not saying every single piece of the US is religious. It's a linguistic simplification that's functionally accurate in order to compare one institution to another. I'd say it's fairly accurate. The hivemind here goes nuts with things like 'Make pot legal', 'govt has no business in the bedroom', 'us military meddles overseas too much', 'I don't care about your religion, as long as you're not shoving it down my throat', 'privacy is vitally important', 'what consenting adults do in their free time with other consenting adults is of no concern to anyone else' etcetc. And those are all very libertarian beliefs.

I meant that the lights being off was what made them suspicious to the cops (and that's what the cops will say, I'm sure). Person I was replying to mentioned cops not being able to see them because of the lights were too bright. I was just correcting that detail, not implying that the victims were in the wrong.